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Jekyll/Hyde
JekyllHyde Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or simply Jekyll & Hyde.[1] It is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll,[2][3] and the evil Edward Hyde. The work is commonly associated with the rare mental condition often spuriously called "split personality", referred to in psychiatry as dissociative identity disorder, where within the same body there exists more than one distinct personality.[4] In this case, there are two personalities within Dr Jekyll, one apparently good and the other evil; completely opposite levels of morality. The novella's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the very phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next.[4][5] Why I chose the book for the course? Let me think! The origin of the story Stevenson had long been intrigued by the idea of how personalities can affect a human and how to incorporate the interplay of good and evil into a story. While still a teenager, he developed a script for a play about Deacon Brodie, which he later reworked with the help of W. E. Henley and saw produced for the first time in 1882. William Brodie commonly known by his prestigious title of Deacon Brodie, was a Scottish cabinet-maker and Edinburgh city councillor, who maintained a secret life as a burglar. With a gambling habit, a couple of mistresses, and five kids, Brodie had a double life. He began using his contracts with Edinburgh’s upper crust to case their houses and copy their keys returning at night to burgle his employers. It was taking on partners that did in the budding master thief; inevitably, someone flipped to dodge the gallows himself. Brodie’s cover was blown, and he hanged with his confederate George Smith. A century later,Stevenson used this extraordinary local history as inspiration for that classic novelistic exploration of the soul’s duality. In early 1884 he wrote the short story "Markheim", which he revised in 1884 for publication in a Christmas annual. One night in late September or early October 1885, possibly while he was still revising "Markheim," Stevenson had a dream, and upon wakening had the intuition for two or three scenes that would appear in the story. One morning, his wife Fanny was awakened by cries of horror from Louis. Thinking he had a nightmare, she woke him up He said angrily: 'Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.' he was actually dreaming about first transformation scene and that is where the story originated. The novella was written in the southern English sea side town of Bournemouth, where Stevenson had moved due to ill health, in order to benefit from its sea air and warmer southern climate. He was really passionate about this work, he came downstairs one day in a fever; read nearly half the book aloud to his family; and then, while they were still gasping, he was away again, and busy writing. His stepson doubt that it took him more than 3 days to write the first half of the book His wife would read the draft and offer her criticisms. Stevenson was confined to bed at the time from a haemorrhage. Therefore, she left her comments with the manuscript and Louis in the toilet. She said that in effect the story was really an allegory, but Louis was writing it as a story. (allegory is a literary device in this case characters representing or symbolizing ideas and concepts). After a while Louis called her back into the bedroom and pointed to a pile of ashes: he had burnt the manuscript in fear that he would try to salvage it, and in the process forced himself to start again from nothing, writing an allegorical story as she had suggested. He re-wrote the story in three to six days. A lot of biographers thought that he was on drugs but according to his wife and son (and himself), he was bed-ridden and sick while writing it. "His physical feat was tremendous and, instead of harming him, it roused and cheered him inexpressibly" says his stepson Lloyd. {from M. Lederleitner's presentation}